According to a coalition of consumer-interest organizations, the makers of two “smart” kids toys — the My Friend Cayla doll and the i-Que Intelligent Robot — are allegedly violating laws in the U.S. and overseas by collecting this sort of voice data without obtaining consent.......
In a complaint [PDF] filed this morning with the Federal Trade Commission, the coalition — made up of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), and our colleagues at Consumers Union — argue that Genesis Toys, a company that manufactures interactive and robotic toys, and Nuance Communications, which supplies the voice-parsing services for these toys, are running afoul of rules that protect children’s privacy and prohibiting unfair and deceptive practices.

schwit1 writes: The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that civil forfeiture denies citizens their due process rights under the Constitution. As the court wrote:

“Because of her indigency and inability to pay the required bond, [Kinnon] was excluded ‘from the only forum effectively empowered to settle [her] dispute.’ Ultimately, Michigan’s civil asset forfeiture scheme operated to deprive [Kinnon] of a significant property interest without according her the opportunity for a hearing, contrary to the requirements of the Due Process Clause.”

This shouldn’t be rocket science, as the language and intent of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution is quite plain.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The problem today is that this has become rocket science. Too many people either don’t know this plain language, or work dishonestly to distort it to empower government to oppress us.

An anonymous reader writes: The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.

The FBI warning, contained in a “flash” alert from the FBI’s Cyber Division, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, comes amid heightened concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about the possibility of cyberintrusions, potentially by Russian state-sponsored hackers, aimed at disrupting the November elections.

mspohr writes: An article published by Bill McKibben in The Guardian points the finger at Exxon for spreading climate change denial which led to lack of action to prevent widespread coral die-off."We know the biggest culprits now, because great detective work by investigative journalists has uncovered key facts in the past year. The world’s biggest oil company, Exxon, knew everything there was to know about climate change by the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its scientists understood how much and how fast it was going to warm, and how much damage that was going to do. And the company knew the scientists were right: that’s why they started “climate-proofing” their own installations, for instance building their drilling rigs to accommodate the sea level rise they knew was coming.

What they didn’t do was tell the rest of us. Instead, they – and many other players in the fossil fuel industry – bankrolled the rise of the climate denial industry, helping fund the “thinktanks” and front groups that spent the last generation propagating the phoney idea that there was a deep debate about the reality of global warming. As a result, we’ve wasted a quarter century in a phoney argument about whether the climate was changing."

bbsguru writes: An attorney in New York is being sued for using an AOL email account. The plaintiffs accuse their Real Estate attorney of "negligently using a "notoriously vulnerable" AOL email account that was hacked by cybercriminals who then stole nearly $2 million".
Aside from this possible risk, what does it tell you when your [attorney | broker | accountant | financial advisor] has a generic email account?

Last year, an enterprising advertising executive based in Boston, Massachusetts, had an idea: Instead of using his sophisticated mobile surveillance techniques to figure out which consumers might be interested in buying shoes, cars, or any of the other products typically advertised online, what if he used the same technology to figure out which women were potentially contemplating abortion, and send them ads on behalf of anti-choice organizations?

Regardless of one's personal stance on the pro-choice/anti-abortion debate, the unfettered use of tracking and ad-targeting technology which makes this kind of application possible is surely a cause for concern. In Europe, Canada and many other parts of the world, the use of a person's data in this way would be illegal thanks to strict privacy laws. Is it time for the US to consider a similar approach to protect its citizens?

It isn't only in the U.S. There are multiple sample in freezers around the world, "officially known" (W.H.O. approved) sites are the C.D.C. and a lab in Russia. The samples are used for legit research under level 4 containment. That's the official line.
IMHO and IANAL the real reason they are kept around is so that places like Fort Meade and USAMRIID and their Russian/Chinese/whoever counterparts have a reference source of a pure strain. Read "The Demon in the Freezer" by Richard Preston.

erier2003 writes: When a House committee heard competing perspectives on encryption last month, controversy swirled around the testimony of Indiana State Police Captain Charles Cohen, the head of the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Cohen repeatedly stressed that weakening encryption for police wasn't dangerous because companies protected their products with “firewalls.” Security researchers and technologists were perplexed.

In an attempt to clarify what he said, as well as expand on the law-enforcement perspective in the heated encryption debate, the Daily Dot spoke to Captain Cohen about his safe-deposit-box analogy, his “firewalls” references, the tone of the public discourse, and what he thinks will happen next.

PolygamousRanchKid writes: KFC in Hong Kong is marketing edible nail polish that tastes like chicken. KFC designed the polish "to appeal to young consumers' love of food and fashion."

The product comes in three flavors — original, hot and spicy — based on KFC's chicken recipe. It's not exactly clear what the nail polish is made of, but KFC says it is "formulated from natural ingredients."

We should note that KFC isn't the first to pitch edible nail polish. Kid Licks, for example, has created three polishes made with fruits and vegetables that are supposed to be safe for kid consumption. Those come in "sour carrot orange," "beet red" and "barley grass green."

trazom28 writes: Hi — I'm throwing this out to the slashdot crowd to see if I can pick some brains. Here's the scoop: I manage a network for a school district in Wisconsin. We have six buildings across the city, several miles apart. Locations have between 2-4 networking closets all with Cisco 2960 series 48LPS or LPD, as well as each closet having a Meraki MS220-48 switch (start of our conversion over). All WiFi APs in each building are on the Meraki switches — this will be important later.

Last week a lightning storm rolled through and a strike was confirmed near the high school — the building actually shook and the power blinked. Since then, we have random connectivity issues in all buildings. Some can log in, some cannot — and it changes as the day goes on. There will be link lights at both ends, but an IP address request does not pass through, therefore it gets an AutoIP and it's done for a while. Randomly it will start working again and others will stop working. WiFi is fine. First thought — the core switch got hit. We replaced that (we were planning to in summer anyway so it was already here). Nope — same issue. Next thought — maybe the metal messenger line for the fiber connections somehow brought it in. Nope — it happens within a building also (in this case the high school) so the outside fiber isn't involved. We also can't find any burned/smoking/scorched parts.

Next — the UPS logs- they show a power spike at the High School (core location) and... all the way across town (2 miles away) at an elementary school at almost the exact same time. The rest of the UPS units I'm having issues with — the web interface no longer wants to stay up enough for me to get to the logs.. I telnet in to reset it and I"m good for a couple clicks and then it's done.

All the Meraki switches are fine — WiFi hasn't gone down at all. The scope of this with distance is mind boggling however. Has anyone *ever* seen anything like this in their networking experience? It's looking like the closets in all locations somehow took a hit through the electrical, even through a UPS, and the Cisco switches all got affected — but the Meraki ones are OK. I've only seen this similar thing once before — years ago. Building took a hit and the only two remaining PCs of a certain brand — both in a surge protector — both would no longer boot.

drugid writes: The Pill ID API provides direct access to the PillID.com pill identification service, which stores the master copy of an extensive, and up-to-date databases providing a definitive identification (ID) from the imprint’s alpha characters, numeric digits and logos. This database is one of the most extensive and up-to-date databases found anywhere.

Utilizing our patented look up routines, we provide a definitive identification (ID) that include logos when others cannot. A definitive ID makes it unnecessary for the user to search through long lists of possible matches, as is often the case when using other resources on the Web.Link to Original Source

ytene writes: Over the last few weeks I've noticed ALL my home PCs (Win7) report updates available, but then refuse to download them. Checked with my local PC shop who tell me they're seeing the same thing — but *only* with Win 7. Nothing reported by Microsoft... Are they deliberately crippling the W7 update?